Online shopping is quickly becoming the preferred means for obtaining consumer products and services. More consumers, for example, are now using the Internet to browse, comparison shop, and order products online. Online shopping systems have made product information, including pricing and availability, readily available to consumers and have facilitated the location and purchasing of desired products at lower costs and with added convenience.
Accordingly, many retailers have established “electronic store fronts” to offer all kinds of products and services ranging from clothes and groceries to computers and automobiles. Conventional electronic store fronts, however, are often modeled after traditional catalogs and are limited in the information disseminated and services provided to the consumer. With typical electronic store fronts, for example, a consumer is prompted to search for a desired product by entering one or more keywords or by sequentially selecting displayed product groups to narrow the product search until the desired product is located. A search result of relevant items is then displayed to the consumer along with a product description and price. The consumer may then place a desired product in an “electronic shopping cart” which the customer uses to place an order with the online merchant.
A shortcoming of conventional systems, however, is that further customer and retailer interaction may be required to complete a purchasing transaction. For example, the customer may choose to inspect or evaluate a product prior to purchasing the product. Additionally, the customer may desire to provide a product to the retailer for inspection and valuation to offset a purchase price of a new product, such as a trade-in vehicle value used to reduce the price of a new vehicle. Although the customer may have the opportunity to contact a customer service representative via telephone or electronic mail, the customer services generally available to the customer may be inadequate to meet a particular customer's needs for completing a transaction.